


Puzzle Pieces

by RedFlagsAndDiamonds



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Timelines, Canon-Typical, Episode: s04e08 Year of Hell, Episode: s07e11 Shattered, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Marriage, Native American Character(s), Technobabble, Time Travel, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-05 23:49:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14629617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedFlagsAndDiamonds/pseuds/RedFlagsAndDiamonds
Summary: After contact with an alien anomaly, Chakotay is thrown into non-linear points of the future where he and Kathryn Janeway are married and have a child.





	Puzzle Pieces

**Author's Note:**

> With apologies to Audrey Niffenegger. :p
> 
> This was inspired primarily by "Shattered," but I used the plotline from the "Year of Hell" two-part episode, as well as elements of "Back and Forth." 
> 
> Enjoy!

There had been unpleasant days among the Maquis, certainly, but none that tested Chakotay’s patience quite to this degree. 

First officer or no, the temptation to plant his fist into the Vulcan’s smug, snobbish face was almost uncontainable, and it was only another round of patterned breathing - his twelfth cycle this morning - that held him back.

Pity. Back at the Academy, Cadet Thmsia had been bruised for days after coming into contact with one of Chakotay’s infamous uppercuts, and the more aggressive classmen tended to treat you with respect when you could bring a Gorn down to the canvas.

“Miss Torres is no longer a member of the Maquis, and with all due respect, Commander, neither are you,” Tuvok was stating with his typical dry directness. When Chakotay had known him as a fellow rebel - had it really been only days before? - he’d found that refreshing; now it was merely another irritant.

Tuvok continued.

“Allowing Miss Torres to get away with a clear violation of regulations sets a bad example to the rest of the crew. It makes it appear as though you were showing favoritism toward the Maquis.”

Good move, Vulcan - putting him on the defensive, making him justify his own actions. It could almost make anyone forget who the liar really was here.

“Look Lieutenant, I don’t have to explain myself to you.” Chakotay fumed, his voice rising. “I’ll deal with B’Elanna personally, and then I’ll inform the Captain. You’re to drop this matter. That’s an order.”

If Tuvok felt at all threatened, the emotion was buried somewhere in his meisofrontal cortex. His expression betrayed nothing except maddenning calm.

“I will yield my authority to you, in this case. However, I will make a full report in my security log.”

Fingers clenching against his palm, Chakotay struggled to maintain the weak pretense of a professional demeanor as he stepped into the turbolift, wondering for a fleeting moment how difficult it would be to conceal Tuvok’s body in a sealed Jefferies’ tube.

“You do that.”

The lift doors hissed shut.

 

None of the hours that followed particularly improved what was shaping up to be a warp-breach of a morning, from stifling over-eager whispers of dissention from among his former crew, to briefly becoming target practice for an airborne soup bowl hurled by the ever-volatile Miss Torres. It was a shame, really - if it weren’t for that temper, she’d rival half the tenured Admirals at the Academy and there’d be nothing to restrain her from rising through life as she deserved. 

Of course, that wasn’t the reason for Janeway’s patronizing dismissal when Chakotay brought up B’Elanna’s name at the Officer’s conference, no matter what she might claim. And it was that sting of bias that might have prompted him to bypass the chain of command so flagrantly, by messaging Torres over Carey for the engineering report. That, or perhaps B’Elanna’s temperament was catching. 

“Mr. Carey,” Janeway snapped like a jealous parent, barely maintaining the aloof manner of captaincy. “What do  _ you  _ think?”

_ “With the right field modulation it might work, but we’ll need more power to the emitter array.” _

“Very well. You’re in charge, Mr. Carey. Report to me when the transfer’s complete.” 

A parting shot, immature and obnoxious, before she muttered just loud enough for the entire Bridge to hear;

“I’d like to see you in private.”

Grinding his teeth, Chakotay followed her to the ready room, pushing away the inherent embarrassment at being summoned to the Captain’s presence for a dressing down like a recalcitrant child, and forcing himself to view the situation as an opportunity. You didn’t speak your mind to the Captain, except in private.

“Let me be blunt.” She began, as the door hissed shut behind them. “What you tried to do just now was out of line.”

“In what way?” Playing dumb wasn’t usually his style, but if they were going to survive the next seventy years without a double homicide, he would need to bring her around to his point of view.

“When you decided to call Torres in Engineering.”

“I’ve worked with her.” he shot back. “I know what she’s capable of. We needed an answer right away, and I knew she could give us one.”

“ _ Carey _ is the senior officer in Engineering!”

“If you look at it that way, none of my people will ever have seniority.”

“That’s the problem, right there!” she snapped, advancing on him. “They’re not your people! You’re still treating the Maquis on this ship as if they’re still your crew!”

“I’m doing everything I can to integrate them into your crew, but frankly, you’re not making it easy for me, Captain.” What an understatement.

“I can’t make it easy, Commander. Surely you understand that? They don’t have the discipline, they don’t have -”

“But some of them, like B’Elanna Torres, have the ability!” He checked himself before his voice rose above acceptable levels for the Captain’s presence, but it was a close call.

“The Starfleet officers on this ship have worked all their lives for their commissions. How am I supposed to ask them to accept a Maquis as their superior officer because circumstances have forced us together?”

It was a simple answer;  _ Because to survive, we have to set aside our pride. _ But survival wasn’t the crux of this matter, and they were both well aware of that.

“Permission to speak freely?” he requested quietly.

Janeway sucked in a deep breath, as if she already knew what was coming.

“Go ahead.”

“... I have no intention of being your token Maquis officer.”

Her lips tightened, and Chakotay knew he had struck a nerve.

“Show me another qualified Maquis candidate, and I’ll consider him.”

The insult to his crew’s abilities cut deep, and razed away the last fragments of his self-restraint.

“B’Elanna Torres. She’s the best engineer I’ve ever known, she could  _ teach  _ at the Academy! You’re right, Captain, I do consider these ‘my people,’ because nobody else on this ship will look out for them like I will. And I’m telling you, you’re going to have to give them more authority if you want their loyalty!”

Janeway’s crystal blue eyes had narrowed to slits.

“Theirs, or yours, Commander?” she murmured, softly, dangerously.

Before he could think up a response that wouldn’t land him flat on his back in the Brig, the ship bucked and jounced with a crash that rattled his brain inside the suddenly reverberating bowl of his skull.

Janeway slapped a palm to her comm badge, while clutching the edge of her desk for stability.

“Tuvok, report!”

_ “We appear to have encountered some kind of gravimetric surge. Attempting to compensate.” _

“Source?”

_ “Unknown. Long-range sensors indicate high levels of neutrinos and chronotons -” _

Gradually, the deck steadied and the bulkhead stopped trembling, long enough to allow the Captain and First Officer to scramble to their feet and onto the Bridge.

“Inertial dampeners are overloading!” Kim shouted from the operations console. “Engineering reports the warp core’s destabilizing-!”

“Captain, sensors indicate a spatial rift is opening directly ahead.” For all the growing tension across the room, Tuvok sounded no more concerned than if he had misplaced a spoon for his plomeek soup.

“On screen!”

The viewscreen blinked to life, revealing a cloud of pulsing, red-violet energy. Threads of electrical variation stabbed and gored viciously at the cluster, like a Cardassian lusting after blood.

“Gravimetric flux density over three thousand percent -”

“- all systems decreasing in energy output; whatever that thing is, it’s bleeding us dry -”

“Eject the anti-matter pods!” Chakotay barked towards the tactical station, familiar instinct taking over without a thought for command structure. “Let’s see if we can’t leave a bad taste in it’s mouth -”

He had just enough time to notice Janeway’s tight-lipped glower before the ship rocked again, every crew member almost thrown to the deck, as several electrical threads broke their ferocious pattern and came lunging towards the vessel, as if in retaliation.

“All hands, brace for impact-!” Janeway had barely enough time to bellow, before the surges touched the hull.

Oxygen crackled like dry kindling, as several jagged beams of quivering blue light sheared through the viewscreen. Four of the data read-out consoles burst in a shower of sparks, stifled moments later by clouds of pressurized flame retardant that covered the room like a fog, and Chakotay’s only warning was a blinding flash of silver before an electrical burst hit him full in the chest.

 

For a long while, all he could feel was cold, knife-sharp, penetrating cold. Not long after his eighth birthday, he’d fallen through the center of a half-solid river, the current carrying him three feet before he was rescued. That morning, as he nearly froze to death, he’d thought he knew what agony was, how a lack of feeling in veins and muscles could become a kind of unremitting pain by itself, but it was barely a gentle touch compared to this.

A sense of weightlessness washed over him, like the water in that river, and something deep in his consciousness assured him that no matter how much he tried to struggle, it would make no difference - there was no surface for his head to break through in search of air, and no choice but to let the undertow carry him to… to…

Oxygen rushed back into his lungs, the pain receded, and the rushing, fluid walls drained away as his knees hit the deck with a jolt.

Mentally, he made a cursory examination of his body and noted that he seemed uninjured - incredibly - but the human nervous system didn’t respond to pain unless provoked. He’d need to request time in Sickbay, though he doubted that Janeway, with all her self-righteousness, would deny him that...

Abruptly, Chakotay took notice of his surroundings.

The Bridge was in shambles, as if the ship had been relentlessly bombarded with gravitmetric torpedos for months. Life support cables - the vessel’s guts - dangled from a maw in the ceiling like organs pouring out of a wound, while collapsed and shattered bulkheads formed barricades of durasteel that someone - and not recently - had fitted with a rickety-looking plank of cargo netting to form a bridge across the wreckage.

“Commander?”

He turned toward the voice, emanating from somewhere near the - well, what was left of the tactical console. 

“It  _ is  _ you, Commander! Well, this is an unexpected - and, may I say, a much needed pleasure! The Captain’s been feeling  _ prrrretty _ low the past few days, ever since the starboard nacelle went offline, and you being here is sure to -”

The emergency lights gave another weak flicker, revealing the mottled orange skin and domed head of the little Talaxian scavenger they’d picked up two days earlier, when this nightmare had begun - but the yellow security epaulettes were unexpected, as were the ranking pips on a sweat-stained collar.

Pausing in his prattle, Neelix cocked his large head concernedly. 

“Everything alright, sir?”

Swallowing back his rapidly increasing confusion and panic, Chakotay had no choice but to resort to half-forgotten protocols.

“Report on the current state of the anomaly… Commander?” he amended with a glance to the Talaxian’s collar - and no small amount of shock.

Neelix’s singed brows furrowed in confusion.

“Anomaly?”

“The gravimetric surge?... A spatial distortion resulting in energy bursts to the hull?”

With a sigh as if coming to a sudden understanding, Neelix nodded good-naturedly and clapped a badly scarred hand on Chakotay’s left shoulder.

“Ahhh, I guess things are a bit muddled up again - not to worry, the Captain will explain everything, she’s become quite good at it. I remember the last time, it must have been four - no, maybe six months ago, you dropped in convinced that the last attack had ruptured the reaction chamber, it took the Captain and Lieutenant Torres nearly an hour to set you straight -”

As he rambled on, they made their way to the forward jefferies tube near the now-blocked off Ready Room - one leading, the other following blindly - and climbed inside once the hatch had been prised open.

“The turbolift’s offline?” Chakotay mumbled hazily.

“For almost a month now.” his guide called back from several feet ahead in the darkened tunnel, the only light emanating from Neelix’s wrist beacon.

As they crawled, his mind began scrambling for possible explanations.

The presence of a chronoton based anomaly would suggest that this was some sort of space-time distortion, perhaps even a parallel universe… no, that wasn’t likely, the technology was exact to the last detail, except for it’s state of miserable disrepair… and hadn’t Neelix mentioned something about ‘the last attack?’ Had they faced a series of attacks then? And if, as had been suggested, he’d been present for these events - perhaps the energy burst had led to cortical damage? No, that wasn’t it - Neelix had reacted as though he’d arrived after a long absence, despite his being unconscious for only several seconds at most…

A side hatch creaked open, giving them access to a stretch of moderately open corridor - Chakotay suspected it was Deck Three, although given the damage and his limited time to familiarize with  _ Voyager’s  _ geography, it was hard to tell - until a clearly makeshift door constructed of spare cargo parts aborted their progress.

Neelix slapped at his comm badge with a knowing smile completely at odds with their surroundings.

“Neelix to Captain Janeway - requesting entry to Residence Block, and, uh - I’ve brought a guest!”

_ “Acknowledged - opening up!” _

The gate gradually swung open with an awful rattle, as Janeway came into view, muscles straining in her arms as she pushed it aside.

She glanced up, dark, sleepless circles under her eyes, and in a fraction of a moment relief and heady joy crossed her dirt-smudged face.

“It’s about damn time,”she muttered with an exhausted smile, and before Chakotay could do more than draw a breath she had cradled his jaw in both rough-skinned hands, and kissed him thoroughly.

 

*

  
  


“At this moment, it would be easiest to assume that he’s dead-”

Janeway noticed Torres stiffen at the opposite end of the conference table.

“- but I’m not willing to presume the worst, at least not yet. As of the last two days, Commander Chakotay is still a member of this ship’s company, and we will exhaust every possible option before declaring his disappearance a lost cause.”

Her eyes lingered a moment on the ex-Maquis officer, and judging by the by the way Torres’ lips tightened, the message was understood;  _ You and your compatriots will not make this a rallying cry for insurrection. _

“Mr. Tuvok, your report?”

“I’ve run diagnostics on the anomaly via long-range scanner - the results indicate a massive cluster of temporal energy, shielded by clouds of tachyon particles and an as-yet unidentified gaseous formation.”

“Could this be a... constructed phenomenon?”

Tuvok arched a brow, contemplative.

“Unknown. The technology required to produce such a vast chronotonic field would be… considerable, to say the least. Precluding the necessary safeguards against chronoton radiation.”

“Maybe it’s… absorbed additional energy over time - like the V’ger entity in the 2270’s?” Kim interjected suddenly. “It did try to draw most of the ship’s power at first -”

“Unlikely - however, such a hypothesis could explain the Commander’s disappearance, as related to the abduction of Lieutenant Ilia aboard the  _ Enterprise.  _ With your permission, Captain -”

“Do it.”she nodded, predicting his suggestion. “I’m open to any leads right now, however far fetched. What’s the repair status?”

Carey leaned forward.

“Tertiary systems are still offline, after the Deck One shield breach. We were able to bypass the main circuitry, but control will have to be accessed via the auxiliary stations instead of the Bridge.”

“Let’s just be glad it didn’t decide to hit something more vital.” Janeway sighed, rubbing her brow with two arched fingers. “Tuvok - maintain scans of the anomaly; dormant or not, I want to know when it makes so much as a twitch. The rest of you, return to stations; I’ll expect further reports at O- fifteen hundred. Dismissed.”

Most of the staff had already filed back onto the Bridge before she raised her voice again.

“Miss Torres - a moment?”

Her shoulders set and her jaw tight, Torres swiveled back to face the head of the table, before speaking through gritted teeth.

“Captain?”

Janeway leaned back in her seat, observing the other woman carefully. There was hotheadedness here, to be sure - it was clearly a current struggle for her not to flip the table on it’s side - but for all her arguments in her ready room only several hours before, Janeway knew in her gut that the duty reviews of the past two days weren’t falsified; despite the shortcomings of her personality, Torres had logged a higher success rating than any of the remaining Starfleet engineering crew, and that was only for routine maintenance. Saints knew what she could pull off in a crunch.

A shame that she’d picked the wrong side of the fight.

“Commander Chakotay spoke highly of you -”

“Already using past-tense, Captain? I thought we weren’t going to make assumptions yet.” Torres all but snapped.

Janeway sucked in a breath to steady her self-control. The girl was in shock, she could make allowances - this time.

“Alright -  _ speaks  _ highly of you.” she amended. “He seems to think you’d be a good choice for Engineering chief.”

Torres’ dark eyes widened perceptibly, but she said nothing.

“However, that’s no longer a priority at the moment. With Chakotay… absent, and as former First Officer of the  _ Val Jean,  _ you’re now the highest ranking Maquis crew member aboard this ship. Whatever my -  _ personal _ feelings may be concerning your placement, I will expect you to make an example to the others; that we will continue on with the appropriate focus and emotional distance. Understood?”

Arms crossed defensively, Torres gave a hollow chuckle.

“And I suppose your crew would be expected to maintain  _ emotional distance  _ if it were you drifting God-knows-where - “

“I would expect them, you, and every individual between these bulkheads to perform their duties to the best of the ability, regardless of where their loyalties may have lain in the past.” Janeway stated coolly, planting her palms flat on the table top as she stood. “I hope I know Commander Chakotay well enough to think he’d say the same. Now, dismissed.”

Torres was already halfway out the door before she turned back, speaking through gritted teeth.

“With respect,  _ Captain _ \- you never knew him at all.”

The door hissed shut, and it was several moments before Janeway realized that Torres had spoken in the past-tense.

 

* * *

  
  


“It’s been a quiet couple of days - we’re not out of the woods yet, but at least we have a chance to catch our breath and make some repairs -”

It was a crude statement, but there was no other way of doing the situation justice; Janeway looked like she’d been through hell and clawed her way back. The uniform jacket had been discarded at some point, leaving her bare-armed in a regulation tank top, and every inch of exposed skin was smeared with a noxious mix of dirt and dried sweat. What Chakotay had initially assumed to be further stains turned out to be thick expanses of scar tissue across her arms and right cheekbone, as if someone had taken an old fashioned welding torch to her face, and her unevenly cropped hair hung in greasy, unkempt strands to the curve of her jaw.

As she lead him through the maze of emergency biobeds and supply crates, he noticed multiple outlets, ten feet by two, where the disengageable bulkheads had been uncoupled to, evidently, convert a row of cabins into a single, open deck. Floor space was at a minimum - every few feet that wasn’t taken up with reserve provisions seemed to have been allotted as a sleeping area.

“Crew quarters are compromised?”

Janeway chuckled humorlessly. 

“Four more decks, last month - most of the transfer relays were knocked out, holo-emitters, the computer system -”

She paused at last, before squatting down amid of a mess of computer chips, circuits, and thermal epoxy.

“B’Elanna had a thought about bypassing the bio-neural systems with isolinear circuitry, meaning every spare pair of hands on the ship’s been wiring together routing cells when we aren’t being hammered to pulp -”

She nodded to the empty patch of deck beside her, scarred fingers already busy connecting blue and silver micro-cables to the chip outlets.

“Sit down, make yourself useful - it’s tedious, trust me, but it’ll be worth it if we can get the replicators back online. One more week of emergency rationing and the Kreniem might not have to worry about finishing me off -”

His head still spinning, Chakotay numbly did as he was told, but couldn’t make himself move any further - nausea did an ugly battle with disorientation, every muscle felt like lead - but when he glanced up again, she was gazing back with the first warm look he’d ever seen on her face.

“It might be cliche, but… you’re a sight for sore eyes.”

One of her hands - stained with epoxy - reached up to touch his cheekbone, and he snapped.

A brief, agonizing flash of shock and hurt crossed her face when Chakotay smacked her fingers away and scrambled to his feet, trembling.

“What the hell’s happening?!”

Multiple crewmen glanced up at the noise, while Janeway gradually stood and moved forward.

“You’re back aboard  _ Voyager _ after a six month absence,” she spoke slowly, as if calming a maddened animal - perhaps not an inapt description. “You were last present for exactly eight days, two hours, and thirty-seven minutes. I’m Kathryn Janeway, Captain of this ship and your wife - “

“You’re lying.” he stammered, heart thumping erratically in his chest. “Whoever -  _ whatever _ you are, I want to speak with your superiors - return me to my vessel and I’ll make certain that no aggressive action -”

“Listen to me - Chakotay -  _ Antinanco  _ -”

He froze. The frantic heartbeat seemed to stop.

“How could you know that-”

“Because you told me, one night, almost a year ago.” she half-whispered, her tone firm, mouth pressed into a hard line, her reddened, sleepless eyes begging. 

“Please - we’ve trusted each other so many times before, I need you to believe me now. What’s the last thing you remember, clearly?”

The images flashed through his mind like an ancient celluloid reel, strangely disjointed for all that they could only be about twenty minutes old.

“Distortion - the-chronoton field, two days out from the Array -”

He cut himself off when Janeway sighed, her eyelids fluttering, as she rubbed her brow stressfully. Grime smeared across her skin.

“This is going to be difficult to accept -”

“I’ve gotten the gist of that already-!” he replied harshly, voice raised, but a sudden, soft gurgling sound, followed by a discontented mewl and finally a wail interrupted him.

If Janeway had seemed tense moments before, she seemed to age years before his eyes.

For several seconds they only stared back at each other as the squalling continued to emanate from a hydro-bin somewhere behind Chakotay’s back, both of them knowing full well what it was and silently imploring the other to speak.

Janeway was the first to break.

“I’m sorry.” she muttered, crossing over to the collection of containers that she had assembled together to form a little barrier, clearly to mark out her own belongings, and reached into the largest one, withdrawing something small and pink and squirming.

“It would have been easier to tell you this later on -”

She turned slowly and moved closer, swaying her body a little to soothe the red-haired baby cuddled in her arms, quiet and content now that his demands were being met.

“Commander… this is Arthur Kolopak Janeway... our son.”

 

* 

 

“What am I looking at?” Janeway asked, perplexed, as the data screen looped endlessly, displaying only an empty read-out. Two gaping, charred cavities marred the upper and lower right quadrants of the monitor, breaking sections of the pattern into fuzzy, flickering patches.

“Nothing.” 

She quirked a brow, no closer to grasping her security officer’s meaning.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand-”

“Quite simply, Captain, we are looking at ‘nothing.’” Tuvok clarified uselessly, entering several codes into a datapad. “Two of the damaged sensor logs have been reverted back to their original manufacturer’s settings, whereas the third -”

Instantly the screen expanded to present an exhaustive index of files.

“- records long-range sensor readings which this ship, evidently, has yet to make.”

Janeway swallowed back her increasing nervousness, as a grim theory began to take shape in her mind. 

“...If this technology’s been temporally displaced, after contact with that anomaly -”

“ - then it is likely that the Commander is existing in a similar state of biotemporal flux, somewhere in the galaxy.”

“Yes, but where?” she countered, smacking her comm badge. “Engineering - begin reinforcing one of the short range sensor probes with antichronitonic particle waves and prepare for launch.”

_ “Acknowledged.” _

Outside the main viewscreen, the distortion continued to pulsate and glimmer against the stars, ropes of crackling energy churning inside it, as if it were mocking her overall helplessness against the situation. Temporal variances were a cutthroat phenomena - one false step, perhaps even one step at all, and you could wreak far greater havoc than whatever chance bit of damage you were trying to repair.

_ “Lieutenant Carey to the Captain - probe ready for launch.” _

“Acknowledged - Mr. Tuvok, fire.”

A subtle vibration underfoot - detectable only to trained senses - signaled that the device was away, moments before the tactical station could confirm.

“Mr. Kim, scan for life-signs inside that cloud - we can at least narrow down where Chakotay  _ isn’t  _ before we start exploring more radical possibilities. And Tuvok, get those sensor logs under maximum security lock,” she added in a rush of grim-faced trepidation.

“I’d rather not have inquisitive crewmen taking the Temporal Prime Directive into their own hands.”

“Understood.”

“Captain,” Kim responded hesitantly. “This doesn’t make sense - I’m only detecting one life sign inside that cloud -”

Janeway’s heart leaped into her mouth.

“The Commander?”

“No Captain,” he replied, eyes wide. “The cloud.”

 

* * *

 

“You made your first visit moments before our initial contact with the Imperium - though why it took nearly three years for you to show up again is anyone’s guess at this point. After that, they’ve been almost at random, day or night...”

Chakotay didn’t have much choice but to listen silently, examining the objectionable yellow-brown swill at the bottom of his coffee mug. Ostensibly, it had once been an emergency ration cube, now ground down, liquified, and seasoned with what little remained of Neelix’s collection of Taalaxian spices. Privately, Chakotay felt that if Neelix had vomited up his own spleen and offered it to him on a plate, it might have made for a slightly more appetizing meal.

 

Five years. Five years and six months that he’d lost of his life, and yet somehow it refused to sink in, his mind balking at accepting the situation just as it had the moment it became clear that he would most likely live out his days and die seventy-thousand lightyears from his home.

But, if what the Captain claimed were true, then strictly speaking, he would still be able to lead a natural life, albeit in a disjointed timeline…

“... How many of these-  _ appearances,  _ have I made so far?”

She cocked one shoulder, leaning back against the bulkhead.

“For us? Maybe thirty times, forty - but that doesn’t include the possibility of encounters in the ship’s future.The Doctor had claimed he’d found some sort of method to bring you back into temporal sync with the rest of us, but once he was knocked offline and the data files were purged in the relay overload...”

After a lengthy pause, as he absorbed this new information, Chakotay finally sighed and set down his cup.

“Well… I suppose I’ll catch up eventually…”

A corner of Janeway’s scabbed lip curled up in a somewhat despondent smile, before - seemingly after a silent wrestle with herself - she spoke up again.

“You still haven’t asked me.”

He swallowed uncomfortably.

“I… what makes you think -”

“You’ve been trying to avoid looking at him for the past hour.”

She nodded towards the baby boy slumped a little bonelessly in her lap, who seemed entirely absorbed in making idle plucks at his too-large romper and sucking tiny fingers into his mouth. Like everyone and everything else on the ship, he was smudged with grime, but his face and hands were noticeably pink and healthy, as though his mother had made a much more concentrated effort to keep him clean and well-fed.

Now that he’d been called out, Chakotay managed to force himself into studying the boy’s face, and the results were somewhat surreal - the red hair was clearly inherited from the Captain, but set into plump baby flesh were the dark eyes that Chakotay had received from his father and grandfather.

“I… to be honest,” he managed, “it didn’t exactly seem appropriate - where I come from, we’re barely acquaintances, much less…”

He stopped himself short before he could complete the thought, not entirely certain what he had planned to say. Parents? Lovers? An old married couple? Not that he had any idea which term was the most suitable, for all he knew the child could have been the result of a single night between two lonely people desperate for human contact, and… that possibility distressed him far more than he expected it to.

Chakotay had always assumed he’d eventually be a father, but throughout the Cardassian War life had been too hectic to consider more than the occasional short-lived attachments with a few different women. Perhaps he was old-fashioned, or just an unrealistic romantic, but he’d hoped for the chance to settle some place with “the one,” after the fighting was over, and one day children would be a part of that life… But instead, his son (and it was still so difficult for his mind to accept that term) had been - or rather, would be - born into a warzone, on a starship of all places.

“Would you like to hold him?”

The question startled him out of his self-imposed guilt, and he replied before thinking.

“No.”

Janeway didn’t exactly seem surprised by his answer, but the suppressed pain was evident in her eyes, and he wondered regretfully how many times before, in her past and his future, he had wounded her with a lack of memory or care.

“He’s learned to recognize you - sometimes a crying jag will start, but... it’s not me that he wants. And I don’t sing as well as you do.” she mumbled, the first time he had ever heard her sound a bit uncertain. 

The abnormality frightened him, but then, he supposed she was feeling much the same. Besides, whether he had shared their experiences or not, this was still his child and, somehow, his wife.

“... I’m sorry.”

She smiled self-deprecatingly, bouncing the baby on her hip. Something metallic jingled near her waist, and a closer glimpse proved it to be an elegant silver fob piece, still large and striking though it didn’t gleam as brightly as it might have once.

He nodded towards it, eager for a change of subject.

“That’s quite a watch.”

“You certainly thought so - you gave it to me last May.”

His lip quirked into a shadow of a smile. 

“I’ll mark it on my to-do list. Anniversary?”

“Good save, but no. Birthday.”

He raised a brow, the smile growing.

“I’m impressed with myself.”

“You should be. It’s a replica of the chronometer worn by Captain Cray in the nineteenth century; his vessel was hit by a storm in the Pacific, everyone gave him up for dead, but eight months later he sailed what was left of his ship back into London Harbor. Just a canvas and a few planks, but he brought his crew home.”

Their eyes met, and in a desperate bid to escape the looming discomfort Chakotay seized on the first response his mind could come up with.

“‘Must have taken up a week or more of replicator rations…”

“Yes.” she murmured gently, refusing to break her gaze. “It must have.”

Suddenly the deck pitched sideways, and a comm pinged.

_ “Tuvok to Janeway.” _

“Report!” she barked, once again all deadly efficiency.

_ “Krenim warships approaching - they’re charging weapons.” _

“Sound red alert - all hands to battle stations.” she replied, her shoulders sagging as though she’d lost all strength and was left with only backbreaking fatigue. The alarm klaxon blared overhead, and immediately set the baby to wailing.

“Give him to me.” The demand was off of Chakotay’s tongue before he could think or rescind it.

“Are you -”

“This isn’t the time for debating about emotional preparedness - “ he half-shouted as the ship rocked again; several layers of tritanium fractured in the ceiling, giving off a shower of sparks from a severed electrical conduit.

“ - you’re needed on the Bridge, and I doubt my command protocols are still online.”

Jaw tight, Janeway set down the makeshift back-sling she’d been in the process of strapping on one-handed, and handed over the child as gingerly as their current predicament would allow.

While the screech of metal on metal announced that she was out of the doorway and on a run for the Jefferies tubes, Chakotay crammed himself into a corner while the baby continued to howl, slumped a little awkwardly against his shoulder.

As the battle outside reached a fever pitch, he tried to swallow back the unfamiliar (and unpleasant) sensation of helplessness by focusing his attention on the deceptively solid little body in his arms, now squirming in an instinctive effort to get free. 

What had she called him? Aaron? Asher?

He felt a momentary pang of shame at having missed something as important as his son’s name, but the deck bucked again, shuddering nauseatingly, and he abandoned all superfluous concerns in favor of simply clutching the boy close for all he was worth.

Eventually the tremors stopped, and an unexpected surge of relief shot through his nerves when Janeway’s weary but thankfully living voice came over the ship-wide comm system.

_ “All hands - stand down red alert. All non-essential repair teams stand-by - “ _

She had barely concluded the sentence before he gasped, all-too familiar tendrils of icy cold weaving through every blood cell. No, not yet - there were too many unanswered questions, but he had only enough time to settle the baby on Janeway’s crumpled jacket as his vision started to blur... 

 

Arthur! It was Arthur!

  
  


*

  
  
  


“All hands, brace for impact!”

Too late - the bolt drove through the hull like a needle into silk, and half the Bridge crew were thrown from their posts like rag dolls. For several moments, the vessel was tossed between the energy currents until the entity seemed to grow bored of the game, and settled back into its pattern of roiling like a many-hued storm in the center of black space.

Slowly, painfully, Janeway began to disentagle herself from the disarray, and climbed back into her chair.

“Report?!”

“Hull breaches on decks ten, eleven, and twelve - jefferies tubes six through nine have buckled, weapons are offline.”

“Casualties?”

“Sickbay reports nine wounded, though none critically. Additionally, one crew member is unaccounted for.”

Janeway spun in her chair, eye wide.

“Who?”

“Ensign Rohgt, assigned Deck Eleven plasma relay.”

“There’s nothing on short-range scanners - no life signs aside from the alien.” Kim shouted from his console, seconds before another pulse jarred the ship.

Her mind made up, Janeway steeled herself and barked towards the helm.

“Get us out of here, Mr. Paris - maximum warp!”

“What about -”

“If they aren’t dead, they’re out there somewhere, but I’m not letting that thing tear my ship apart for the sake of hope - do it!”

They’d been soaring at warp six for nearly eight minutes when the comm chimed.

_ “Captain…”  _ Lieutenant Carey’s voice came falteringly over the system, and Janeway frowned - it wasn’t like him to forget communication protocols, he was so upright.

“Lieutenant, what’s wrong-?”

_ “Captain, I - I think you’d better report to Engineering.” _

Pushing back her rising dread - you gave that up when you joined the Command track - she climbed to her feet and nodded to Tuvok.

“Walk with me.”

The Vulcan raised an arched brow, but made no comment as they both entered the turbolift and the doors hissed shut.

 

The Engineering room was as silent as a mausoleum, every eye focused on one patch of the deck, roughly eight feet away from the core controls, where Carey knelt beside a charred, motionless object that gave off a corrosive, gamey smell like burned acid.

He glanced up, swallowing with distinct difficulty, and judging by his chalky pallor and the stain across one of his boots, he’d been sick recently.

“Captain, I - there was no warning, he just - appeared, out of nowhere…”

The Bolian was covered head to foot in horrific burns, exposing thick veins and charred, grey bone, while raw flesh glistened blue and wet under the worklights. Yet, somehow, the worst aspect of the scene was simply the expression on his face; pure, unconcealed astonishment.

“Ensign Rohgt.” Tuvok muttered needlessly, and Janeway’s eyes closed.

 

*

 

“Alright, I’m going t’throw several jabs and a swing - try and anticipate each move.”

Kathryn nodded, tapping a gloved hand to her sweat-soaked forehead and taking an upright stance.

“Do your worst.”

He smirked, bending his knees a bit and leaning back.

“We’ll work up to that.”

In any other match, Chakotay would have taken full advantage of her momentary glare and laid a full overhand across her cheekbone, but then, she was only a beginner.

Instead, the first two jabs landed on her shoulder, before a right cross sent her staggering backward with a groan.

“You’re looking at the gloves, not me.” he chided, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “This isn’t just a physical exercise - half the technique is mental perception. Now watch my eyes and focus.”

Judging by her expression, he had no doubt she’d like to wail on him for ten minutes running, but probably wouldn’t be able to stay on her feet for that long. Between repair shifts while they hid in the nebula, and various lifestyle changes, the opportunity to sit still and rest was rare to the point of vanishing.

Another sleepless night had pushed him into suggesting a bout or two, and, probably longing to work off several weeks of stress, she’d agreed.

He landed another touch to her shoulder, and with a sudden catlike yowl that promptly turned every head in the room, Kathryn launched herself at him and began raining flagrantly illegal blows all over his chest and ribs.

Caught off guard, Chakotay didn’t have much choice except to tense his muscles and absorb the onslaught, thankful that she’d agree to borrow his gloves for this little exercise. Eventually she wore herself down to exhaustion and sagged against his chest.

“‘Sorry.” she mumbled, the word half-smothered by the skin of his collarbone. “‘Guess I’m getting a tantrum of my own in, before I’m forced to start dealing with them.”

He chuckled, ignoring the ache in his ribs while he helped her regain her footing.

”Congratulations, Commander!” Neelix exclaimed, trotting over from his seat in the corner, his usual chirpy optimism directly at odds with their battered surroundings. In his stocky arms, Arthur was looking extremely put-out that his nap had been interrupted, and had fixed both his parents with a ruddy, wrinkled glare.

“On Talax, a man is never considered a father until his wife shares the experience of birth by striking him five times!”

Kathryn raised a brow.

“‘Sounds like wedded bliss.”

With a good-natured pout, Neelix prattled on.

“Oh it’s a happy occasion, attended by the extended family - there’s a big dinner, speeches - though nowadays, the smacks are generally only delivered symbolically; with the greatest affection, of course.”

“Well, if that’s the case, there shouldn’t be any doubt about paternity - I’m going to be feeling that for a couple of days.”

Shooting him a playful glare, Kathryn scooped the baby back up - “To the winner go the spoils!” Neelix crowed - and they started the trek back to her cabin, or at least what was left of it.

The main window had needed to be blocked off, and pieces of shattered knick-knacks and equipment were swept aside into the corners, but at least the replicator and the sonics were still online. 

“I don’t think I’ve been this disgusting since the Academy…” she muttered, plucking at the pale blue tank top that their vigorous exercise had plastered to her chest with sweat. .

“Go get a shower - I’ll put him down.”

With a sigh and a puppyish gaze of gratitude, she willingly relinquished the baby and disappeared into the Head.

Arthur seemed perturbed a moment at the abrupt change of caretaker, but resigned himself to the situation after a moment and sort of curled up against his father’s collarbone like a Prixus Three lily beetle. Breath catching a little in his throat, Chakotay simply rubbed a hand along the baby’s fleshy back and continued swaying, until he slipped into the lullaby out of acquired habit.

_ “Iichi wachi nyehh, iichi wachi nyehh… iichi wachi nyehh a’uohu’kah…” _

 

“... I didn’t know you sang.” came a murmur from the bathroom door, and his faced started to burn. In all truth, he’d forgotten about the disjointed nature of their family history - he’d already sung Arthur to sleep at age three, one, and six, fingers petting through thick red hair - and never really paused to consider that, at some point, there would be a first time.

“It’s the only thing that calms him down… trust me.” he replied, smiling a little, which she returned before a thoughtful expression came over her face, her lips pressing close as if she were preparing for something she wasn’t sure was entirely wise.

“I’ve never asked you this - and I know you’ll have to take my word for that - but… do you still wish you could go back? To before this all started?”

“... What d’you mean?”

She moistened her lips, and the uncertainty on her face increased.

“When you first came back, sometimes it seemed to be all that drove you, day and night. To be honest, I think it might be what drew me to you, in a way… but suddenly… it was never like you to give up easily, Chakotay. You had courage, determination… and I’m almost afraid of what might drive it out of you.”

For a long moment, he had nothing to say. In some ways, it was frustrating, with no ability to be sure what experiences might drive future actions - actions that, technically, he had already carried out - but for all his control of the situation, there wasn’t much to be done except to live in the present, and after the past sixteen jumps he had taken, all lasting between five minutes and a month, accepting the here and now was difficult to avoid - as was the idea of considering this fragmented existence and ruined ship, “home.”

“... My grandfather used to say, ‘even the eagle must know when to sleep.’” he answered, at last. “I might as well be fighting my own birth, for all the control I have over my situation; so why shouldn’t I devote what time I have to building a life here?”

Kathryn wasn’t wholly satisfied with his reply, it was obvious in the way her brow furrowed and her lip curled - but she didn’t protest.

“This won’t mean anything to you, not yet… but do I love you. Whatever happens, remember that.”

She was close now, he could feel the heat radiating from her skin, and it would have been so easy to incline his neck and kiss her hair…

He held himself back. It would have been an empty gesture, and he would rather have put a phaser to his head than cause her pain.

 

*

 

“But could you pinpoint the cause of death?”

The Doctor huffed.

“With a fairly rudimentary tricorder scan; Ensign Rohgt suffered severe plasma burns to the face and trunk, corresponding to an extreme plasma surge - death would have been almost instantaneous.”

Janeway swallowed with some difficulty, glancing to the body laid out in the surgical alcove behind a glimmering level eight forcefield.

“Forgive me, but why would containment be necessary?”

“Unfortunately, that’s why I asked to speak with you right away, Captain.”

Turning to the console monitor, the Doctor swiftly brought up a grid simulation of an oval, Bolian blood cell - but where pale blue cellular matter should have pulsed gently, the surface appeared to have been singed. Powdery white ash was visible a the perimeter.

“Initial scans revealed incredible levels of chronoton radiation contaminating the general cell structure - levels that until now, have never been recorded. Frankly, Captain, this would have killed him within minutes, had the plasma not gotten there first.”

With a kind of horrified fascination, her gaze remained fastened to the animation as the chemical burns ate away at the innocent cell, until nothing remained but a shriveled white husk.

“... Could it have been contact with the entity, that caused the reaction?”

“I’m not certain - but this might give us some clues - “

At the touch of a button, the simulation grid realigned itself to display a layout of the Ensign’s full anatomy.

“Judging by the overall tachyon dispersal, it seems that chronoton particles were almost being  _ funneled  _ through the body at intense speeds, continuing even moments before death occurred -”

“Captain,” Tuvok interrupted suddenly, at Janeway’s shoulder. “I believe enough material has been accrued to form a reasonable hypothesis.”

She turned, eyes wide.

“Go on.”

“I think it likely, that we are dealing with a consumer of time - or, more accurately, a chronophage.”

For a moment, his explanation was greeted only with blank stares.

“... Explain.”

“Firstly, contact with the entity results in shipboard technology being dispersed to random temporal intervals. It is not unreasonable to presume that the same phenomena would impact a lifeform. Moreover, the extreme levels of radioactive infection would indicate that the victim is transported to temporal zones of heavy chronotonic activity; where the entity utilizes their connection to the lifeform to draw the chronoton particles as an energy source.”

“Like a straw in a milkshake…” Janeway muttered, with dawning understanding. “Chronoton dependent life has never been encountered, not even speculated on -”

“If you’ll pardon the cliche, there’s a first time for everything.” the Doctor interjected dismally.

“- meaning we’ve got no help manual to turn to. Tuvok - is it possible, that this...  _ entity, _ could possess sentinence?”

“It is not an impossibility - however, if you are considering an attempt at communication, you have arrived at an illogical postulation.”

“Really?”

“The chronophage has already established that any efforts to approach it, will result in absorption with it’s metabolic processes.”

True enough - it certainly hadn’t seemed eager to cooperate in the past. And yet, if there were any chance that it was an animal capable of thought and planning, particularly if it were (and she realized with an alarmed jolt that there was no way to be certain of it) a unique life-form, then destroying it would have to be avoided in the interests of Starfleet regulation, regardless of what had transpired concerning her own officers.

“Doctor…” she began at last, carefully. “If I’m remembering correctly, don’t certain substances inhibit cellular respiration?”

“Yes, of course; rotenone, antimycin, malon-”

She leaned forward on the console, and began rubbing her temples.

“In theory… could a similar substance be used to block off the creature’s chronoton withdrawal, just long enough to allow us to lock on to Chakotayr’s temporal signature?”

The Doctor seemed taken aback.

“Yes, in  _ theory _ \- but there’s nothing in my database recording an attempt of that nature on anything non-humanoid - “

“As you said, Doctor - there’s a first time for everything. Get on it. Tuvok, I’ll need you on the bridge - start looking for some way to deploy a bio-substance canister into that cloud formation without risk to the ship.”

“Captain.” Tuvok forced her to pause before she could walk out the door. “I must remind you that Ensign Rohgt was dead within moments of contact with the chronophage. You are operating on a very slim hope, that Commander Chakotay has not already encountered a similar fate.”

Her eyes fluttered shut, unseen by the Vulcan, before she drew in a deep breath.

“You have your orders, Mr. Tuvok. Carry on.”

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


The chill and the vertigo dissipated, as before, but the rush of nausea was new - not to mention unpleasant.

For a long few moments, all Chakotay could manage was a crawl along the deck, or what was left of it, until his insides stopped twisting like tentacles and he was able to gasp down air.

It was a short-lived attempt; the atmosphere was thin and in seconds he was lightheaded again. 

“You might find this more effective.” a metallic, female voice mentioned somewhere overhead.

He glanced up to find an unfamiliar woman holding out a battered breathing mask, and he didn’t bother wasting time with verifying her identity before mashing the instrument to his jaw and sucking in several deep, luscious breaths.

No matter that the oxygen it offered up tasted vaguely sulfuric; the damaged converter connected to the mask’s hose should have been scrapped long ago. It was only when he was able to stand and get a glimpse of his surroundings, that it quickly became clear why nothing, not even faulty technology, could be spared.

Emergency lighting was offline, the only illumination provided by the blinking of the alert klaxons. Bulkheads had been crushed, crumpled over on themselves like waterlogged paper, while the ceiling sagged under its own weight - and the tonnage of however many decks had collapsed above it.

“There is a moderation of structural integrity left in cargo bay three -” his companion mentioned, as she steadied him with a fine-fingered hand on his shoulder - a spidery network of delicate tubules, like exterior veins, rode down each of her knuckles.

“- we should regroup with the remaining crew.”

Chakotay had to jog in order to keep pace with each of her strides, while she led him down the access corridor. Despite her age - sunken lines were visible above her own breathing mask, surrounding blue eyes and the curious metal plating on her left brow - she was clearly less affected by the damage to the ship than any average human, and he wondered if the Krenim species that Janeway had mentioned before had somehow managed to invade the vessel.

Unlikely, he decided after a moment’s further thought - they seemed to be an intolerant, or at least wholly destructive race, certainly not the type to offer survival gear to a stranger who appeared without warning.

Another makeshift door had been constructed outside the cargo bay, but she tore it open without a comm to the interior or even much effort.

“You were meant to check in twelve minutes ago!” a familiar, starchy voice half-shouted as they squeezed through the modest opening, and Chakotay was startled to recognize the ship’s EMH - now with the addition of a full head of hair - rushing towards them with an outstretched portable decontaminant.

“I - oh, it’s you.”

“I thought you were offline-!” he objected automatically, while his guide began stripping out of her badly patched radiation suit.

“I see your biotemporal frequency is still out of alignment.” the hologram groused, raising an eyebrow at whatever results appeared on the instrument’s readout screen. “You assisted in recovering my program approximately four years ago, when your son -”

“Doctor!” B’Elanna’s sharp tones called out from behind two of the remaining five storage units, before she stood, unsteadily.

“Focus on Seven - after all that overtime, I want her cleaned up.”

“Yes, Captain.” it replied curtly, though Chakotay could hear it grumbling under it’s breath; “Because Heaven forbid radiation kill us all before the Krenim have the chance…”

B’Elanna hobbled over, her gait stymied by the prosthetic limb fastened at her mid-thigh - someone had crudely filed down a damaged conduit and added a single joint approximately at the knee, but it seemed to have loosened with overuse; she was constantly catching at pieces of shelving to steady herself.

“... Captain?” he asked quietly, once she’d been supported to a nearby position.

She rolled her eyes, running a grimy hand through her ragged grey hair - likely another souvenir from the radiation evidently plaguing the ship.

“Well, you aren’t exactly a commissioned officer anymore.”

It would have been easy to ask her then, find out what had happened to make this extreme power transfer necessary, but a part of him that he wasn’t ready to acknowledge dreaded the painfully obvious answer and prompted him to play dumb.

Instead, he chose the next worst question.

“... How bad?”

Wordlessly, but with a look he knew well, she awkwardly pulled a sheet of flexi-film off the shelving and unrolled it over the standard-issue desk that now seemed to be doing multiple duty as a table, galley, and storage locker. A rough cross-section of  _ Voyager  _ had been sketched out in what looked suspiciously like a child’s marker, and multiple sections had been shaded or - presumably when the artist was short on time or had simply tired of the effort - merely crossed out in deep blue.

“Only about an eighth of the ship is still habitable, after we lost deck nine - what we can access requires survival equipment. All of the holo-emitters are offline, besides this room - warp’s been gone for nearly a month, we’re hanging on to impulse by our fingertips, shielding is offline, and ultimately, we’re simply prolonging the inevitable.”

As the grim prognosis sank in, he couldn’t help pressing for more information.

“And the crew?”

B’Elanna fixed him with a withering glare, clearly finding his evasive ignorance tiresome.

“... We’re all that’s left.”

He’d expected the answer, but that didn’t make it any less horrific to hear - that for all their hopes, nearly one hundred and sixty people, somewhere in the past, were destined never to see their homes again. 

“Now if you don’t mind, I have more important things to do than catch up.”

She limped over to the one operational console, her face set in a stony grimace, leaving him to the EMH’s tender mercies as the hologram scuttled back to his side.

“You were very fortunate, Commander - there appears to only have been mild radiation contamination. No doubt the situation would have been much worse if Seven had found you any later.”

It - he? - switched the medical tricorder back to default and leaned forward with a nervous glance to B’Elanna in the corner.

“You’ll have to forgive her behavior. She’s been through more than any one person can handle, we all have. Seven and I were luckier than most, at least we still have each other - however, Lieutenant Torres was forced to listen to her fiance over the comm system, while he suffocated in a decompressing jefferies tube.”

Chakotay tightened his jaw, swallowing uncomfortably.

“... Where are they?”

“Commander?” the hologram replied, frowning.

“Kath- Captain Janeway… my son… how- when did…”

The EMH’s expression shuttered with surprising acuity for a computer system, before he responded, hesitantly.

“Almost two years ago, we - there were several children aboard at that point, and it was considered unsafe for them to wander around the ship when we didn’t know when the next attack might come - but…”

His voice broke off for a moment, until he was able, haltingly, to continue.

“It was - there was a conduit leak on deck six, we were leaking plasma coolant -  the Captain had no choice, by the time the deck was evacuated it would have been too late - please understand, we gave them as long as possible, but the transverse bulkheads had to be closed…”

Eyes fluttering shut, Chakotay made a vicious attempt to clamp barriers across his own imagination, as the grisly scene took shape; crew members shoving, screaming frantically as their only routes of escape slammed shut in front of them. And not simply the adults, the children too. An uneven breath shuddered out of his lungs. How had it happened? Had his child - Arthur- Arthur who loved drawing, and hearing stories about his mother’s Irish Setter, who traced his tattoo with tiny fingers in quiet moments, and refused to sleep until he had been sung to -  had he been crushed underfoot in the mad scramble for survival, or had he lived long enough to feel the gaseous chemicals begin to melt away his skin…?

“Afterwards, the Captain’s behavior deteriorated - she took increasing risks with her own safety, and… there had been a theory, that if the leading Krenim ship were destroyed, we might be able to right some of the damage - she took the shuttle out before operations could detect the breach, and…” 

The hologram’s mouth tightened into a thin line, his brows drooping with an astonishingly effective imitation of grief.

“... Sensors indicated the explosion was insufficient to break through the temporal shielding. It was a fool’s hope.”

For a moment, Chakotay couldn’t manage to speak, but eventually voiced the first question that came to his mind.

“Was I there? When…?”

After a long moment, the EMH nodded, without meeting his eyes.

A heavy ache began building in his guts, until he thought he might vomit. Had he begged her not to leave, to stay alive, for him? Perhaps - but then, what if this temporal madness, whatever it might be, were to propel him straight to the hour of Janeway’s death within the next few moments? For all Chakotay’s foreknowledge of their eventual future, for all their growing, tender friendship, it couldn’t be called love, not yet - and what if it were that lack of feeling, of true affection, that ultimately pushed her to the brink?

“Listen... I don’t blame -”

He was cut off abruptly by a rising sensation of intense nausea and cold, and almost cried out in frustration. No, not  _ again _ -!

“Stay calm-!” the hologram instructed curtly, with the brisk tones of someone facing a routine emergency. “Your biotemporal signature is destabilizing again - don’t fight it -”

As if in direct response, Chakotay instinctively tensed every muscle, struggling to keep his eyes open and focused on his surroundings, only for the sickness to worsen.

“Keep breathing, Commander - wherever you end up, it can’t be worse than here - and, sir -”

The EMH glanced up from his tricorder, very real human sorrow reflected in his eyes seconds before everything dissolved into a grey haze;

“ - I’m so sorry.”

 


End file.
